Solar System objects are defined in the ''ssystem.ini'' file in the data directory. It can be extended to contain comets and asteroids. Here are a few extended ssystem.ini files which you can use. If you want just some of the bodies from one file and some from another, you will have to copy and paste the relevant sections of the various files together into your own ssystem.ini file.

Solar System objects are defined in the ''ssystem.ini'' file in the data directory. It can be extended to contain comets and asteroids. Here are a few extended ssystem.ini files which you can use. If you want just some of the bodies from one file and some from another, you will have to copy and paste the relevant sections of the various files together into your own ssystem.ini file.

||Aditional textures and comets with ssystem.ini|| [http://sarcasmogerdes.dyndns.org/stellarium/uploads/stellariumtextures.ZIP here] || 2010-08-17|| An alternative set of textures for the texture folder along with a corresponding ssystem.ini file containing a selection of comets for the data folder.

* '''ssystem.ini structure:''' Your ssystem.ini file must contain all bodies referenced as parent bodies of objects in your ssystem.ini file - you can't say that the moon is in orbit around Earth, and then not have an Earth body - Stellarium will crash if you do this.

* '''ssystem.ini structure:''' Your ssystem.ini file must contain all bodies referenced as parent bodies of objects in your ssystem.ini file - you can't say that the moon is in orbit around Earth, and then not have an Earth body - Stellarium will crash if you do this.

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* <span id="MPC_list">'''the MPC list:'''</span> The current version of Stellarium is not designed to handle the complete list of objects by the Minor Planet Center. So please use this file to copy-paste your preferred objects into your own ssystem.ini file. This list is (automatically) updated regularly to reflect the quickly growing number of known dwarf planets and other small bodies of the solar system. Currently, the (unpacked) file is 140 MB (and growing), so make sure you have an editor which can handle files that large ;-)

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* <span id="MPC_list">'''the MPC list:'''</span> The current version of Stellarium is not designed to handle the complete list of objects by the Minor Planet Center. So please use this file to copy-paste your preferred objects into your own ssystem.ini file. This list is (automatically) updated regularly to reflect the quickly growing number of known dwarf planets and other small bodies of the solar system. Currently, the (unpacked) file is 140 MB (and growing), so make sure you have an editor which can handle files that large ;-). At present MPCORB is not available via anon-ftp on MPC site, so the updates are currently not fully automatic.

==Single objects==

==Single objects==

Line 50:

Line 51:

===Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin)===

===Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin)===

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'''Source:''' This code has been created by hendrik_d, based on [http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/iau/Ephemerides/Comets/Soft07Cmt.txt comet ephemerides by the IAU Minor Planet Center], and [https://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=6103527 posted] on the Feedback forum on 2009-01-13. The orbital elements may be slightly out of date.

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'''Source:''' This code has been created by hendrik_d, based on [http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons.cgi JPL's HORIZON system] as of October 2010.

<pre>[C\2007 N3 Lulin]

<pre>[C\2007 N3 Lulin]

name = C/2007 N3 Lulin

name = C/2007 N3 Lulin

parent = Sun

parent = Sun

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coord_func = comet_orbit

radius = 10

radius = 10

oblateness = 0.0

oblateness = 0.0

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halo = false

+

albedo = 1

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lighting = true

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halo = true

color = 1.0,1.0,1.0

color = 1.0,1.0,1.0

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tex_halo = star16x16.png

tex_map = nomap.png

tex_map = nomap.png

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coord_func = comet_orbit

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tex_halo = star16x16.png

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orbit_TimeAtPericenter = 2454842.1414

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orbit_Epoch = 2454806.5

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orbit_PericenterDistance = 1.212289

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orbit_SemiMajorAxis = 70409.3419307421

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orbit_Eccentricity = 0.999987

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orbit_Eccentricity = 0.9999827827050909

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orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 136.8614

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orbit_Inclination = 178.3736027417096

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orbit_AscendingNode = 338.5353

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orbit_AscendingNode = 338.5348700644318

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orbit_Inclination = 178.3730

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orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 136.8619206230844

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lighting = false

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orbit_MeanAnomaly = 359.99999811984

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albedo = 1

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</pre>

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orbit_visualization_period = 10401394706.0</pre>

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(This is code for Stellarium 0.10.0 and 0.10.1. For version 0.9.1, replace ''orbit_visualization_period'' with ''sidereal_period''.)

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(This is data for Stellarium 0.10.5.)

===International Space Station===

===International Space Station===

Latest revision as of 17:41, 13 November 2011

Some or all of the information on this page is no longer accurate.

It may be relevant to an older version of Stellarium, or it may not be relevant at all. This page itself should be updated, archived or deleted.

This warning has been here since January 2011.

Solar System objects are defined in the ssystem.ini file in the data directory. It can be extended to contain comets and asteroids. Here are a few extended ssystem.ini files which you can use. If you want just some of the bodies from one file and some from another, you will have to copy and paste the relevant sections of the various files together into your own ssystem.ini file.

Future versions of Stellarium will contain some sort of method to manage groups of extra bodies, but for now it is manual.

MINOR PLANET CENTER ORBIT DATABASE (MPCORB). This file contains published orbital elements for all numbered and unnumbered multi-opposition minor planets for which it is possible to make reasonable predictions. (See the note below)

ssystem.ini structure: Your ssystem.ini file must contain all bodies referenced as parent bodies of objects in your ssystem.ini file - you can't say that the moon is in orbit around Earth, and then not have an Earth body - Stellarium will crash if you do this.

the MPC list: The current version of Stellarium is not designed to handle the complete list of objects by the Minor Planet Center. So please use this file to copy-paste your preferred objects into your own ssystem.ini file. This list is (automatically) updated regularly to reflect the quickly growing number of known dwarf planets and other small bodies of the solar system. Currently, the (unpacked) file is 140 MB (and growing), so make sure you have an editor which can handle files that large ;-). At present MPCORB is not available via anon-ftp on MPC site, so the updates are currently not fully automatic.

After version 0.10.3, Stellarium comes with the Satellites plugin which shows the positions of a number of artificial objects in Earth orbit, including the International Space Station.

For previous versions of Stellarium the ISS can be added as a Solar System object. This is strictly a workaround - Stellarium's orbital mechanics module is not designed specifically for satellite tracking. Satellites are small, (relatively) fast, and their orbits are influenced by a lot of factors and change over time, so orbit data should be updated periodically. The Satellites plugin downloads TLE lists from a website, but using the ssystem.ini to add satellites requires manual updates.

This forum thread contains a discussion on how to add the ISS to ssystem.ini:

JPL/Horizons Parser for Stellarium, an on-line JavaSrcipt-based parser by Andreas Steinel that can use data for an solar system object from the JPL Horizons database to create an entry suitable for Stellarium's ssystem.ini.